The most consequential question emerging from the Philippine political crisis may no longer be whether the Marcos-Duterte alliance collapsed.

It plainly did.

The more consequential question is what the Duterte political machine was doing after the alliance collapsed — and how it intended to regain power.

That question takes on a new and potentially explosive dimension following former senator Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV’s latest allegations that millions of pesos in funds linked to China entered companies and organizations associated with Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Manases “Mans” Carpio.

The allegations remain allegations. They require authentication, financial tracing and independent investigation.

But placed alongside the Philippine government’s longstanding allegations of destabilization efforts against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and the increasingly public evidence of an organized political struggle for control of the Philippine state, they raise a question Washington cannot afford to ignore:
Was the Duterte political machine merely fighting for political survival — or was it systematically building the financial, organizational and political infrastructure for the removal of Marcos and the restoration of Duterte power?

And if Chinese money ultimately proves to have entered that infrastructure, an already explosive domestic political story becomes a national-security story.

The power struggle began before the public rupture

The significance of Sandro Marcos’s recollection of the early days of his father’s administration is that it provides a glimpse into the political conflict before the Marcos-Duterte alliance formally broke apart.

The 2022 UniTeam victory appeared, from Washington, to represent an extraordinary consolidation of Philippine dynastic politics: the son of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. returning the Marcos family to Malacañang, while Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter became vice president.
But Sandro Marcos has said he anticipated the alliance’s eventual collapse because of competing groups surrounding the two political families.
“There was a lot at play,” he recalled, describing people who appeared to be vying to take power away from his father.

He characterized it as a power struggle.

That observation is important because it moves the story away from the convenient interpretation that the Marcos-Duterte rupture was simply a disagreement between two politicians.

It suggests that, from the beginning, there were competing political organizations positioning themselves around the presidency.

And once that alliance broke, the competition became existential.

The Dutertes were no longer partners inside the administration.
They became its most formidable political threat.
Then came the destabilization allegations

The Philippine government subsequently raised alarms about alleged efforts to destabilize the Marcos administration. The Armed Forces warned soldiers against participating in destabilization efforts and referred to alleged attempts to oust Marcos.

The Duterte camp denied involvement. That denial matters. So does the government’s obligation to prove its allegations.

But the allegations did not emerge in a political vacuum.

They appeared amid an increasingly intense confrontation between two political dynasties that had jointly won the presidency only two years earlier.

The dispute then escalated from political competition to questions of succession, impeachment, alleged destabilization and, eventually, allegations involving threats against the president himself.

In 2024, Sara Duterte made remarks about having spoken to an assassin and instructing that Marcos, his wife and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez be killed if she were murdered. She has denied that the remarks constituted an actual threat. A Philippine court nevertheless found probable cause for three grave-threat charges, issued an arrest warrant in September and allowed her to post bail.

That is an extraordinary deterioration in relations between political allies.

But it also provides the backdrop against which today’s financial allegations must be understood.

Follow the money
This is where Trillanes’s presentation potentially changes the story.

The former senator has alleged that more than ₱319 million entered Cale88 Foods, a company associated with Carpio, from China-linked sources. He has also alleged that ₱150 million went to the Tapang at Malasakit Foundation, an organization associated with Sara Duterte.

Those claims must be proven.

But suppose investigators ultimately establish that the money was not simply commercial or charitable funding.

Suppose it can be demonstrated that Chinese state-linked interests financed organizations, companies or intermediaries connected to a political network seeking to regain control of the Philippine government.

The political implications would be enormous.

The question would no longer be simply whether China sought influence in the Philippines.
That has long been a subject of legitimate strategic concern. The question would become whether Chinese resources entered the machinery of a political movement attempting to alter the Philippine succession of power.

That is a very different proposition.
The missing link is political purpose
Money by itself does not prove a conspiracy.

A Chinese company doing business with a Philippine company does not establish political interference.

A donation to an organization does not automatically constitute foreign political financing.

And financial transactions involving people connected to a politician do not, without more evidence, establish that the politician personally benefited.

But financial investigators know that money trails become politically significant when they intersect with organizational networks. The question therefore should not stop at:
Where did the money come from? It should proceed to: Where did the money go?
Who controlled the receiving entities?
Who authorized the transactions?
Who were the beneficial owners?
What services or obligations accompanied the transfers?
Did the recipients subsequently finance political operations?
Did money move to political allies?
Did resources support mobilization, communications, political organizations or electoral machinery?

And, most importantly:
Did any foreign actor acquire access or influence over the political network as a result?
Those are questions for investigators, not commentators.

But they are now unavoidable questions.

The Madriaga allegations deepen the mystery
The significance of Ramil Madriaga’s allegations is precisely that they add another piece to this developing picture.

Madriaga, a jailed witness, alleged in 2026 that the Duterte camp considered assassination or armed attacks against government officials as part of a plan to create unrest and ultimately remove Marcos. These claims remain contested and require corroboration.

Again, one should be extremely careful.

An allegation is not proof.

But consider the sequence investigators now have to examine:
political alliance → internal power struggle → collapse of UniTeam → destabilization allegations → alleged plans to remove Marcos → Sara Duterte’s extraordinary threats against the president → impeachment → allegations of a Duterte political financing network → allegations of China-linked money entering parts of that network.

That sequence does not establish a conspiracy. But it establishes something else:
a pattern of events that demands investigation as a whole rather than as isolated controversies.

The Washington question

For Washington, the China dimension makes this potentially much bigger than another Philippine dynastic feud.

The United States has invested heavily in the Philippines as a treaty ally and strategic partner.

Under Marcos Jr., Manila has moved closer to Washington, expanded defense cooperation, and taken a substantially harder position toward China’s actions in the South China Sea.

The Duterte years represented a markedly different strategic orientation toward Beijing.

That does not mean every Duterte politician is pro-China, nor does it mean every Philippine politician who deals with Chinese business interests is compromised.

But Washington has learned, painfully, that China’s influence strategy is not confined to military bases or diplomatic statements.

Influence can operate through business.
Through political relationships.
Through elite networks.
Through money.

And through people who occupy strategically important positions.

If the Trillanes allegations are ultimately substantiated, the implications would extend beyond Philippine domestic politics.

They would raise a fundamental question about whether a U.S. treaty ally’s political system was vulnerable to foreign financial influence at precisely the moment when Manila was becoming strategically more important to Washington.

The Duterte strategy
The most compelling interpretation of the emerging evidence is not necessarily that the Dutertes had a single master plan written down somewhere.
Political machines rarely work that way.
A more plausible possibility is the gradual construction of political optionality.
Maintain the mass base.
Maintain local political alliances.
Maintain financial resources.
Maintain relationships with influential business and political actors.
Keep pressure on the administration.
Exploit public dissatisfaction.
Wait for political weakness.
And, if circumstances permit, reclaim national power.
That is politics.
But if foreign money was inserted into such a network, it becomes something else.
It becomes a potential foreign-influence problem.
And if that foreign money can be linked to a government whose strategic interests diverge sharply from those of the Philippine government and its American ally, the national-security implications become profound.

Marcos’s real vulnerability

Ironically, the greatest danger for Marcos may not be the Duterte political machine itself.

It may be the perception that the Philippine presidency is being fought over by two dynasties while ordinary Filipinos watch institutions become weapons in a political war.

The Marcos administration therefore has an obligation to prove that its investigation of the Dutertes is not merely political retaliation.
Every allegation must be tested.
Every document authenticated.
Every peso traced.
Every witness cross-examined.
Every Chinese connection independently verified.
And every person — whether Marcos ally or Duterte ally — must be subject to the same standard.

Otherwise, the Duterte camp will simply portray the investigation as an attempt to destroy its principal political rival before 2028.

That would weaken the very case the government is trying to build.

The stakes are no longer 2028
The conventional interpretation of the Marcos-Duterte confrontation is that it is fundamentally about the 2028 presidential election.
That may be too narrow.
What is being fought over now is the architecture of Philippine political power itself.
Who controls Congress.
Who controls the national political machinery.
Who commands the loyalty of local governments.
Who controls the Duterte political base.
Who survives the impeachment process.
Who controls the narrative of corruption.
Who controls the security establishment.
And, increasingly, who has access to the money required to sustain political power.
That is why Trillanes’s allegations matter.
If they are disproved, the Duterte camp will have every right to say so.

If they are proven, however, the Philippines will have to confront a much darker possibility:
That the effort to reclaim Malacañang was not financed exclusively by Philippine political interests.

The question Washington should be asking
The United States should not pick the Marcos side of a Philippine dynastic war.
It should not endorse allegations merely because they are directed against politicians whose strategic orientation differs from Washington’s.
Nor should Washington dismiss them because they involve a political family that remains popular among millions of Filipinos.
The proper American question is simpler:
Is Philippine political sovereignty being compromised by foreign money?
If the answer is no, the investigation should establish that.
If the answer is yes, then the Philippines — and its allies — have a fundamentally different problem.
Because the story would no longer be about Ferdinand Marcos Jr. versus Sara Duterte.
It would be about something much bigger:
whether a foreign power was helping finance a political machine that sought to change who occupied the Philippine presidency.
That is the thread that now needs to be pulled.
And if investigators pull it far enough, they may discover that the story of the Marcos-Duterte rupture was never simply about two families fighting over the next election.
It may have been about a struggle for control of the Philippine state — and about who was willing to finance that struggle.
That is a story Washington cannot afford to watch from a distance.